Saturday, February 27, 2010

New Rule: Stop saying "sex addict" like it's bad thing. In the wake of Tiger Woods' heartfelt apology that he gave to his fans, his friends, his foundation - and just to be safe, Elizabeth Edwards - the media has been interviewing sex addicts: on CNN one addict said, "The day Mount Saint Helens blew up, everyone was talking about it. But I didn't even know it happened because I was having sex all that day." Oh, the humanity! Please get this man some professional help soon, before he has a hot three-way and completely misses a tornado.

Now, I haven't commented on Tiger Woods much because, well, he's just a golfer and it took me this long to give a shit. But all this talk about sex addiction now - please - sex addiction is just something Dr. Drew made up because he had no other way to explain Andy Dick. And that's not just me saying that - it's also the American Psychiatric Association, which does not list sex addiction in its manual; it does not regard it as a real psychological syndrome, like delirium or bipolar disorder or any of the other things Glenn Beck suffers from.

You want to know the surest way that you can spot a "sex addict?" He's got a penis. That's why Tiger was having sex with more women than even a black celebrity needs to have sex with, and thereby threatening to unbalance the delicate ecosystem of playas and ho's.

But before Tiger moves on there's one more apology he really should make, and that's to Buddha, for dragging him into this mess and proving once again, that whenever something unspeakably tawdry, loathsome and cheap happens, just wait a few days. Religion will make it worse.

Now usually, when famous cheaters are looking for public redemption, they go to Jesus, but Tiger went old school, and claimed that sleeping with 2/3 of the waitresses in America had made him a failure as a Buddhist. He said Buddhism teaches you the way to inner peace is letting go of desire - and if that doesn't sound like marriage, I don't know what does.

Personally, if I was a golfer, I'd go with Jesus - because he's a Trinity, so when you walk with him, you've got a foursome. Christianity is for rubes. Buddhism is for actors.

And it really is outdated in some ways - the "Life sucks, and then you die" philosophy was useful when Buddha came up with it around 500 B.C., because back then life pretty much sucked, and then you died - but now we have medicine, and plenty of food, and iPhones, and James Cameron movies - our life isn't all about suffering anymore. And when we do suffer, instead of accepting it we try to alleviate it.

Craving for things outside ourselves is what makes life life - I don't want to learn to not want, that's what people in prison have to do. Buddhism teaches suffering is inevitable. The only thing that's inevitable is that if you have fake boobs and hair extensions, Tiger Woods will try to fuck you.

And reincarnation? Really? If that were real, wouldn't there be some proof by now? A raccoon spelling out in acorns, "My name is Herb Zoller and I'm an accountant." ...something?

People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy: it's a religion. You're a religion if you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year-olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died, and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred Lama: "His poop is royal!" Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely-housebroken, uneducated being and say, "That's our leader" doesn't make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, February 26th, 2010. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

Being politicians you know, they all got to sharing their personal stories. Obama talked about his mother’s battle with cancer. And Harry Reid talked about a kid with a cleft palate. And John McCain told how he once carried a brain dead woman through an entire campaign

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

Obama’s like a guy in college who spends a whole year, wasting it, trying to hit on Ellen DeGeneres.

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue regarding Obama reaching out to Republicans

Bush said he had spent the last year working on his book. I swear. Hard to believe Bush has a book. But if you buy Cheney has a heart…

The games were fun, but there were some high-profile mistakes, come on. Admit it. Like the terrible decision to let Toyota design the luge.

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

Also in the category of obvious but still shocking, an animal called a killer whale killed someone who was trying to play with it. Now, no one knows exactly what enraged the whale, but earlier in the week, it had been thrown off a flight by Southwest Airlines.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

The United States, rather than simply try to talk to these guys who now run Iran, we ought to be looking for ways to strengthen the green movement, the opposition in the streets of Iran, to see if we can’t help bring about a change in politics in that country.

- Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations

What I thought was good about the summit was it made clear that there is a real ideological difference. And if Obama believes in healthcare reform he should push it through. He has a majority. He doesn’t need the Republicans to support him.

- Chrystia Freeland, US Managing Editor of The Financial Times

Nobody wants to pay for somebody else.

- Chris Rock, regarding resistance to healthcare reform

If you look at gun violence, the big problem is the war on drugs, in my opinion. I think as long as you criminalize a behavior that tons of folks are involved in, you know, you basically create this huge spiral of crime.

- Reihan Salam, co-author of "Grand New Party" and a columnist at The Daily Beast

The NRA, these are the same guys that are all worried about big government and your rights and your right to thrive and live and everything else. But it you or I grew a pot plant on our property, they’d want it seized by the government n… and to me, that’s just hypocritical.

- Adam Carolla

New Rule: Don’t bring wine to my dinner party. Because then if you drink it, it’s not really a gift, is it? But if I choose a different wine, you’re thinking, “What the hell’s wrong with the bottle I brought?” And when you bring wine and then say, “I don’t drink,” what kind of condescending crap is that? Your cute little gift is such a minefield of potential awkwardness; thank God I’m already high.

- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment

New Rule: Saying “Hey, it was the ‘80s” is not an excuse. This week the New York Times broke the news that when Senator Scott Brown went on a first date with his wife, he was wearing pink leather shorts. Let me repeat that: He was wearing pink leather shorts, because, “It was the 80s.” Scott, I remember the 80’s, and one man wore that outfit. So congratulations, tea-baggers, you just elected Richard Simmons.

- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment

This week's guests were Chrystia Freeland, Reihan Salam, Olivia Wilde, Adam Carolla, and Richard Haass, with a special surprise appearance by Chris Rock.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, February 19th, 2010. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

We’ve been on a long break and I’ve just been kicking back, doing nothing. Like our government.

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

Tiger Woods apologized to the three women in America he never got around to sleeping with.

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

The only sport I really get into is snowboarding. Cause that’s the only sport where they perform a half pipe just after smoking a full pipe.

- Bill Maher in his opening monologue

The reason that we aren’t changing things right now is that the banks have lobbyists in Washington in numbers I’ve never seen.

The party out of power believes that they can get back into power by running against government and being the party of “no”.

- Norah O’Donnell

Fundamental reform doesn’t come from bipartisanship. And it seems to me, bipartisanship has become appeasement. Barack Obama won an election based on a set of principles. Fight for them.

- Eliot Spitzer

Any Republican who wants to filibuster now should be required to stand up and read aloud from Twilight.

- Seth MacFarlane

We’ve had our fair share of Bush jokes.

- Seth MacFarlane in response to Bill’s comment that he’s been making fun of the retarded for years

It’s not going to make the military soft or anything. I mean, they’re soldiers. We’re talking, yea, they’re gay, but we’re not talking Ru Paul, Elton John gay, we’re talking “Brokeback Mountain” gay.

- Wanda Sykes regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

New Rule: Just because you can get pregnant, doesn’t mean you must get pregnant. The pregnant man is pregnant for a third time. You know, if you have a beard and a mustache and you have a baby every ten months you’re not a pregnant man, you’re an Italian woman.

- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment

New Rule: Stop calling “The Tea Party” phenomenon a “Movement”. To be a real political movement, you have to, well, move toward some specific legislative goal. The Suffrage Movement, for example, gained voting rights for women, the Civil Rights Movement outlawed discrimination against blacks, and the Gay Rights Movement brought us the Winter Olympics.